


The incredible Adventures of Captain Shelley

by islandkate, Lakritzwolf



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, NAZI CRABS, clam superheroes, hermit crabs are sluts, stupid crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 04:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15356757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islandkate/pseuds/islandkate, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakritzwolf/pseuds/Lakritzwolf
Summary: Islandkate and yours truly have produced a horrendous masterpiece inspired by linane-art‘s beautiful Sounds of Silence side story Tales in Sand and Wind."If shells had superheroes, this would be the one." Kili declares, picking through Fili’s sizeable by now collection and singling out one medium-sized shell with distinct black and white stripes.Islandkate had the idea and then I started it and then it got totally out of hand.





	The incredible Adventures of Captain Shelley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Tales in Sand and Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126371) by [Linane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/pseuds/Linane). 



> Kili is definitely the co-author of this... this thing, as I took as many of his ideas about Captain Shelley and squeezed them into a fic.

This is the Cluster.

To an unsuspecting onlooker, it is just a couple of large and a few smaller rocks in the surf close to the coastline. But it is home to a multitude. Clams, mussels, a few razor shells, the odd starfish, even a few urchins, and… yes... yes, barnacles, too. Great Clam, there are barnacles _everywhere_ so there is nothing to be done about it.

And then, there is the Other Side.

The Other Side is the landward side of the Cluster. Where the surf crashes when it comes from the land.

Of course, there are many more barnacles there than is decent. Also, a few unfortunate shells and clams that have been unlucky enough to wash up there as larvae and now… well, it is not a nice thing to say, but when you were from the Other Side, you were pretty much off the charts. No decent shell would have anything to do with anything from the Other Side. Landwater dwellers...

A few of the starfishes who occasionally wandered around in the cluster tried to spread the belief that the Other Side wasn’t as bad as its reputation, but what does a starfish know about proper shells and clams?

But, there is one thing to be said about the Other Side. It was a shady place, yes, and that is why no one asks questions. If you want to vanish from the charts for a while, that is where you go. But, leaving is another thing entirely because landwater just leaves marks on you.

Shell-lings just out of plankton stage are told by their elders to work hard on their plankton filtering skills and get a good grip on the rock below, or they would end up there.

But here, on the Other Side, between the crags, the nooks and crannies of the Cluster, where the landwater washes through… this where our story begins.

* * *

“Captain, listen to this!” Shelldon turned around on his foot. “It’s all over the pipefish net!”

“For Clam’s sake! How often do I have to tell you not to call me Captain around here?” 

“Oops…” Shelldon looked contrite, “Sorry Cap, I keep… oh for plankton’s sake!” 

“Shelldon, watch your language.” The large, shapely shell, covered in a thin layer of greenish-brown algae, adjusted his well-muscled, shapely foot and sighed. “Anyway. What do the pipefish pipe then?”

“Oh, they pipe about the adventures of the incredible Captain Shelley again!” Shelldon clapped his shell a few times in appreciation. “Listen to this?”

They both stretched a little and listened to the pipefish net.

_“The incredible Captain Shelley! Protector of the helpless and those tangled in the murky tentacles of the sea weed!”_

The peep had come from the waterside of the cluster, and the pipefish were re-piping it across the sands surrounding the cluster.

_“Protector the helpless and those tangled in the murky tentacles of the sea weed!”_

“I guess they’re referring to the razor clam incident two high tides ago,” Shelldon said proudly. “Unimaginable what would have happened to those two poor clams if y… Captain Shelley hadn’t come!”

_“Protector of the helpless and those tangled in the murky tentacles of the sea weed!”_

“It feels good, Cap, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Shelldon, but if you call me that again I just might have to-”

“Not the Snap!”

“The Snap is for the bad guys. But I might need a more discreet companion.”

“Oh no!” Shelldon straightened up. “No, I’m good. I…”

_“Procreator of helpless hoes smoking weed of tentacles!”_

The two clams exchanged a look.

Shelldon looked a bit embarrassed. “I guess that was Plom.”

“Plom.” The algae-covered large clam sighed. “Why is he still on pipenet? I have never heard him re-peep anything that made sense.”

“Sir, he’s my friend.”

If clams had eyebrows, Shelley would have raised his.

“I know he’s not the brightest, sir, but…” Shelldon twitched the joint of his shells. “He’s a good guy.”

“Maybe. I’d say he’s as dumb as a rock though, but that would be an insult to rocks.” 

“Cap… sir! That’s not fair! It’s not his fault a land giant stepped on him the first time he left his hole!”

Shelley sighed. It was true, of course it was not Plom’s fault, but his weird peeps were outright-

_“Prostrate sea weed!”_

-annoying.

It was disastrous what those land giants could do. The appearance of that giant lump of flesh with five short clumps at the front always caused surges of panic. Sometimes… sometimes, the lumps of flesh that vanished far above the surface just passed by and left again. No one had ever found out how tall those land giants really were and what they looked like.

But sometimes….

Stories told to scare little shell-lings into their shells at night. A giant thing, like an octopus but with only five giant, fleshy tentacles, descending down from the frightening above - the legend was passed on by the starfish, that the water just ended up there somewhere, but if there wasn’t water, what for plankton’s sake was there? - and from that above, those tentacles would reach out, and grab some unsuspecting, horrified little clam, tear it off its small, innocent piece of bedrock, and carry it upward. Those poor creatures were never seen or heard of, ever again.

The starfish said that both, the lumps of flesh trampling everything in their path, and the horrifying tentacles, belonged to one single being. It was unfathomable how huge those creatures had to be. They lived outside the water, the starfish said. But outside the water, there was nothing! How could anything survive in nothing?

Those thoughts were always heavily on Captain Shelley’s mind. Because even his Sonic Snap did nothing against those monsters. It was a force of nature, and there was nothing a shell could do about it.

But as he was pondering those heavy thoughts, the pipefish net outside exploded.

_“Mudcrabs! Attack of mudcrabs!”_

_“Mudcrabs in the cluster!”_

_“At least five mudcrabs! Several shells already lost!”_

Shelley and Shelldon exchanged a look.

_“Lost shells crapping in the mud!”_

Shelldon face-shelled. “Oh Plom….”

“No time for that Shelldon!” Shelley was already on his way towards the secret cranny. “The Cluster needs us!”

The cone shell bouncers guarding the doors of the larger caves gave the two clams no notice. They weren’t clientele.

A few hermit crabs made lewd comments about how they could scrape those algae off Shelley’s shells. But of course, neither of the two gave them any notice. Hermit crabs were even worse than barnacles. Selling themselves. Going from shell to shell. Exposing their _soft_ parts.... It was sad how low a crustacean could sink.

Down in the sand, the pipefish net was still going mad. So many re-peeps blended into each other that the words ‘mudcrabs’ and ‘attack’ were the only ones that were discernible.

Having reached their secret lair, Shelley immediately grabbed the bits of seaweed to scrub the layer of algae off his shells. Below, the bright black-and white stripes became visible, and Shelley the good-for-nothing clam from the Other Side became Captain Shelley.

“Come on, Shelldon!” Shelley swam out of the cave. “The Cluster needs us!”

Which was more than true. The mudcrabs, five in all, had already cracked and gutted several helpless clams, and a razor clam lay trampled and trembling next to a small pebble. A single glance told the Captain that it was beyond help, and all he could do was gently close the shell after the trembling had stopped.

“Your death will not go unavenged,” he said, and gritted the edges of his shells.

And then, with a mighty contraction of his muscled foot, he catapulted himself off the sand. The mudcrabs would pay.

As he soared up from behind the rocks, a few clams caught sight of him, and their wondrous screams alerted the others.

“Look!”

“What is it?”

“Is it a scissortail sergeant?”

“Is it a convict chichlid?”

“No! NO!!” Screams of joy. “ **IT’S CAPTAIN SHELLEY!!!** ”

Shelley took hold of the rock at the very tip of the Cluster, looking down at the havoc the mudcrabs had wrought.

“Your feast ends now, you six-legged, clawed monsters!”

“Cap, don’t they have eight legs?” 

“Eight-legged monsters!” Shelley tilted, and tilted back again. “What do I care, they have legs, that alone is a reason to treat them as enemies!”

“Ah, our verry dearr frriend, Captain Stripey,” the mudcrab leader snarled and clicked his claws. Or one of his claws. The other seemed broken, it did not move. “Fancy rrunning into you herre. Zis is such a pleasant surrprrise.” He lifted his left claw and clicked it. “Zank you, zat is just ze trap ve vanted you to fall for.”  
  
“Clawberg. I should have known,” Shelley said and opened his shells threateningly. “The Cluster is under my protection. Leave, or be sorry you didn’t.”

The clicking sound of the laughing crabs made dozens of clams around them slam shut in whimpering fear.

“My last warning.” Shelley opened his shells wider. “Leave.”

“But we just had starrterrs,” another crab said. He was missing one eyestalk. “We arre not nearrly done herre!”

“Very well.” Shelley stretched his foot and opened his shells as wide as they could. “You asked for it.”

And with that, he slammed them shut.

The Sonic Snap hit the first mudcrab straight in the face and almost broke his left claw in half. Screaming and clicking the crab scuttled backwards, and a few others looked almost panicked back and forth between their boss and Shelley who opened his shell again.

But then Clawberg lifted his claws and screamed “NOW!! ARRISE!!”

Shelley’s heart sank. Five crabs, he could have handled. But all the others who suddenly crawled out of the mud? At least a dozen more, clicking and snapping their claws.

Next to Shelley, a small mussel literally crapped himself in fear. Little greenish clumps and smears rose upward, but Shelley tactfully ignored those as he stared at the crabs.

He had thought Clawberg defeated. Captain Shelley does not kill if he can avoid it, and Clawberg had been so destroyed and his claw had been almost shattered and Shelley had honestly thought the threat was over.

Apparently, crabs carry long grudges. Because now he was back, and he would stop at nothing to get his revenge on Captain Shelley. Clawberg would kill every single shell, clam, and mussel in the Cluster if he had to, to get at Shelley.

He could not win this. But maybe he didn’t have to. If he led the crabs away from the Cluster, if he took the fight into the open waters, then maybe the Cluster would be safe. Shelldon was maybe a bit young, and he hadn’t mastered the Sonic Snap yet, but he was well on his way and he would be a good protector of the Cluster when the time came.

“So you want me, one-clawed crust-face?” Shelley pushed himself away from the rock. “Then catch me if you can!”

“Cap!” Shelldon jumped up as well. “Captain you can’t-”

“NO!” Shalley gave his companion a push. “Stay here! Protect the shells!”

“Captain!” Shelldon screamed. “You cannot win this!”

“I will have won if the Cluster is saved!”

“But they don’t have a protector anymore with you gone!”

Shelley looked at his long time companion, and nudged him with the edge of his shell. “They do,” he said gravely. “They do.”

“But…” Shelldon quivered. “But I’m not Captain Shelley…”

Shelley nudged him again. “In time, you will be. Now go, protect the Cluster. I have a crab problem to sort.”

The first crabs had already reached Shelley now, and he pushed Shelldon away again. “Go!”

“But Cap…”

“GO!”

Shelldon hesitated for another moment, but then he fell back towards the cluster. Shelley in turn faced the first mudcrabs and clicked his shells a few times.

“Oy! You!” He clicked again. “Did you know that your mother was so ugly not even barnacles would climb her!”

Crabs have very strong feelings about bloodlines and family, and Shelley knew what buttons to push. The crab reacted as predicted and set off in a mindless charge. Two Sonic Snaps, and she was lying on her back with twitching legs and shattered eyestalks.

That left only… about a dozen more.

Shelley managed to draw the crabs further away from the Cluster, but despite that he could only hope it would remain safe. But that was in Shelldon’s shells now. He had to dispose of the crabs.

Crabs are not known for their brains, and that was probably the reason why Clawberg had rallied so many of them. Various insults thrown at various ancestors sufficiently enraged the crabs so Shelley was able to pick them off one by one, but it took him longer and longer with each crab. He was tiring out, and his Sonic Snaps were losing their impact. He needed seven for the last crab, and he simply couldn’t open his shells anymore.

He sank down, and landed in the sand at the bottom in a soft cloud of silt.

“Ah, so ve meet again, dearr Captain.”

“You will not win,” Shelley said to the crab. But he knew it was over. He didn’t have one single Sonic Snap left in him.

“Oh, I zink I disagrree on zat one, Captain.” Clawberg prodded Shelley with his mutilated claw. “And it vill be soon.” With that, he reached for Shelley with his other claw.

Shelley struggled in the sudden grip, but there was no breaking free. Clawberg pulled him close, and Shelley saw his death in the crab’s beady little eyes.

“You see,” Clawberg began, almost conversationally, “it is not easy, livink wiz only one claw. The ozer one has to be verry strronk.” He squeezed a bit, making Shelley squirm.

“Verry strronk,” he said again and inserted the tip of the claws between Shelley’s shells, prying them open very slowly, bit by bit. Shelley knew it was over; at one point the claw would just snap his ligaments and there was no closing his shell again, and Clawberg would have won and feast on his corpse. If he was lucky. If not, then Clawberg wouldn’t kill him before tearing him apart to devour him.

His ligaments strained and screamed in protest, and Clawberg pushed and pushed, but oh so very slowly. Clawberg clipped the tails of seahorses to watch them die, just for fun. He took great pleasure out of the slow destruction of his arch-nemesis.

“And afterr I am done viz you, Captain, I vill rreturrn to ze Cluster and…”

What he was about to threaten, Shelley would never know, but later, he could of course hazard a guess. Go back to the cluster, kill Shelldon as well, and make short work of every single mollusc he could get his claws on.

But Clawberg’s plans were thwarted, by a fate no one could have foreseen.

At first it was only a shadow from above, and Shelley thought it was death reaching out for him. But the shadow came down fast, and took on the shape of a huge lump of flesh… with five smaller lumps… Shelley didn’t have the strength to warn, and would never have done so anyway. The land giant would crush them both, and the threat would be over. Shelley sighed and embraced the inevitable.

He felt the impact, and the lightness around his shell, and he thought: So this is what death feels like. But then he realised he was still hurting, and being dead shouldn’t hurt. Should it?

The giant lump vanished again into the above, and left behind a crushed and shattered Clawberg. Just as Shelley looked, the corpse stopped twitching.

But Shelley wasn’t able to properly celebrate victory. He sank back into the silt, his last conscious thought of Shelldon and the Cluster. The Cluster was safe. It was over.

The crabs were gone, and Clawberg was history. Where he would join him shortly. Shelldon would keep the Cluster safe. Shelldon…

...and his friend…

Plom.

That stupid... brainless... piece of plankton… was not - Shelley pushed himself out of the silt - going to be responsible - he gingerly closed his shells a few times and dragged himself around - for HIS Cluster.

But now, on top of everything else, the shells had another problem. Barely able to move, Shelley realized the land giant was headed for the Cluster! Only Shelldon - possibly that idiot Plom as his sidekick - stood guard! He tried to launch himself up from the silty bottom to give chase, yet could only crawl, but he did so as fast as he could.

He might as well have taken a winkle as a mount. He dragged himself through the silt, driven by one thought: The Cluster still wasn’t safe because there was no chance in the abyss that Shelldon and Plom would be able to do something. Shelley was not sure he himself could, not in his state, but he’d be damned if he would give up now.

Back on the Other Side, the appearance of a giant lump of flesh with five short clumps at the front had indeed caused a surge of panic. A few cone shells took advantage of the chaos to complete some contracts, and a few unlucky mussels who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time were never seen again. But most amazingly, six winkles that had been lost for three tides turned up with a crazy story.

The winkles claimed that they were picked up from the sand beyond the water by a land giant, carried back to the cluster, and placed gently on the rock. No one believed them. What would be next? That mer were just a myth? Ha!

No one believed them. Wherever they had been, they sure as plankton hadn’t been brought back by a land giant. A few cones tried to pry out of them what kind of algae or seaweed they had eaten prior to that “experience” but in the end, the world quickly lost interest in a handful of confused little winkles.

Back out in the silt, Shelley could only watch as the land giant left the Cluster again, apparently without doing any harm.

And then he heard a familiar voice.

“There he is! Over here!”

Something nudged him, and Shelley was able to identify the voice as Shelldon’s.

“Doctor… will he live?”

The surgeonfish, dragged here by the tailfin by a panicked Shelldon, prodded Shelley a bit and looked him over. “Oh aye, he will. He needs a bit of rest and food… thank Clam the crabs didn’t get him before Captain Shelley got them.”

The surgeonfish vanished again and Shelldon nudged Shelley again and tugged gently at his ligaments. “Sir, we need to get you home.”

“Why didn’t he…”

“You’re covered in silt and… I’m not sure what this is but it could be something that belonged to Clawberg. Something… that belonged inside Clawberg.”

Shelley decided that he’d rather not know. He let Shelldon help him get adrift again and they made their way back around the Cluster, to the Other Side, by nightfall. Still covered in silt and bits of Clawberg, no one could see Shelley’s stripes, and no one looked at them twice.

By the time Shelley and Shelldon had reached the lair, the Other Side had settled back into its usual routine, and here it felt as if nothing had ever happened.

Of course, the loss of the molluscs killed by the crabs would be keenly felt by the members of the community. The shock sat deep, and it wouldn’t wear out anytime soon.

But at this point, Shelley had little strength to spare for the dead. He was filthy, exhausted, and just wanted to crawl into a corner and strain some plankton. And sleep. For at least four tides.

Outside, the pipefish were busy. So busy in fact that some were getting hoarse.

_“Captain Shelley missing after mudcrab massacre!”_

_“Lookout raised for Shelley!”_

_“Shelley got the crabs, lookout!”_

_“Winkles rejoice return of lost six, report ten missing on the last tide!”_

_“Rejoice, the tide gets rid of wrinkles!!”_

Life in the Cluster went on. The winkles still talked about their magical rescue by the land giant. Some claimed to have seen Captain Shelley die. Others swore up and down that they had seen him swim away after the silt had settled. He was Captain Shelley after all, a simple mudcrab with a bad accent couldn’t just kill him. He would come back when the Cluster needed him.


End file.
